FireFly

Tea Time

_ Last time, on ‘Nirvana’.

Previous session: A Town (‘Serenity View’) overlooking Serenity Valley, a barroom brawl that was deliberately started, Bar-owner (Elizabeth) being pressured to leave, Monty’s lost his Wife, Preacher Carson who dislikes the saloon, people going missing in town, and sightings of ghosts. Finished with heavy boots on the Gangplank.

This week. _

Virgil Morningstar, and a small passel of henchpeople, came to talk business with us, he asked us to transport some cargo from Phoenix Heights to his warehouse near the graveyard. He wants to avoid Alliance Involvement, and wants no questions asked. He has an auction scheduled to sell his mystery product – boxes 3×3×6 feet in size.

Chiquita’s a bit flirtier than normal, which is saying something, she seems to like what she sees in Morningstar.

We agree to do the job, even though we don’t like him. Contract is signed.

Monty’s wife has gone missing. He doesn’t like Morningstar.

I pass on a message from my Bunny, we’ve been assigned a meeting. We’re expected to go see Colonel Sally Wu, at Mei Long’s Fine Dining and Tea Rooms at 10am tomorrow. Half the group decide they’d rather be ministering to the poor.

Doc, and Heliotrope, give me their proxy votes, for the meeting with the Colonel. It must mean they trust me. Could it mean they actually like me?

Bunny is going get an angry response in his message box tomorrow. I am not happy about whatever he may have said to Col. Wu about my shipmates and me.

Colonel Wu is the alliance rep for the town.

Ms. Wu claims not to be related to Colonel Wu, so the decision to minister to the poor is clearly a co-incidence.

Heliotrope wants to go surreptitiously visit the rough side of town, get an ear to the ground, I can’t let her go alone, it might be fun. For the first time in a while, I get out the disguise kit, and we have a dress code for tonight – non-descript. Hey, we both speak french.

We spot a group of five men, standing out from the environment a bit, we overhear them saying ‘I think we’ll get old Max to sign next time’.

We go have brief drink at Elizabeths bar, see Kareem is already there, but go hang at the back anyway. Elizabeth says that Col. Wu seems to be a fair sort.

Is this where we got the idea that Morningstar is selling contracts for indenture?

Next day the Doc, Preacher, and Heliotrope, go to visit with the local Doctor, and help some locals, while Chiquita, Kareem, and I go to the Tea Rooms 20 minutes early.

Colonel Wu doesn’t come alone, but her people doesn’t say anything during the meeting. She’s irritated that my shipmates didn’t come along. She suspects Morningstar of criminal activity, but has no proof, since she already knows we’re doing a job for him. she wants us to help get her evidence of his misdeeds. I tell her we are transporting things for him, and suspect he’s selling indentured people. She says that’s more than they have figured out so far.

Kareem won’t stop shoving the contract in my face, says we’re not supposed to talk about the Morningstar Job.

Col. Wu wants us to do the delivery, and to then call her on a frequency she provides, to summon her people to catch him in the act, and arrest him. This plan seems unbelievably thin, Indentures are legal (though horrible), transporting is legal, and I’m betting that auctioning Indenture contracts is legal too. It is suspicious that he wants us to do this job on the quiet, but I don’t know what else could be happening.

I don’t know why, but I agree to do the job for Colonel Wu, and say my OWN price is to be kept out of any communications about this. I didn’t negotiate for my team. Maybe they’re not my team, maybe they’re friends?

Chiquita notices someone in the next booth over may have been listening, goes and pressures him in to a date (and at our ship too), while Chiq’ has him distracted, I go through his pockets grab his ID, note the details, and return them. Chiq notices a tattoo on his neck, seems he’s one of Monrningstars men.

Kareem and I decide to take a brisk return to the ship, to be ready for Chiq’s return. I think we’re about to lock this guy up on the ship for now.

On the way back to the ship from the Tea Rooms, I note we’re being followed, and decide to do nothing for now, since returning to the ship quickly is important, and it reveals nothing to anyone.

The person following approaches and says ‘Will you need help at Phoenix Heights? I’m with Colonel Wu.’.

Carter, Heliotrope, and the Preacher can’t find old Max.

After returning to the ship, I send Bunny an angry message about setting us up for this job to one of his alternate addresses, and ask for verification codes, to ensure I haven’t been tricked with the earlier message from him.

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.

Gunfire is nasty stuff, so unpredictable, you need so little skill to pick-up a gun. Captain Maxo got winged, it could easily have been worse. He shot first though, so I guess it saved his life.

The fake Max is pretty messed up, lost his memory in an accident, got his face messed up, the doctor who reconstructed him, assumed he was the real Max because he was carrying some ID papers of his.

After getting him back to the shuttle, Heliotrope contacted a family lawyer, who put us in touch with a local lawyer, so we could arrange with the local authorities to come in, and hand in the fake Max to clear our names.

The last thing I expected after getting to the authorities, was to see my Colonel jonas Bradshaw in the welcoming party.

New evidence had turned up, so we had to give up some DNA for testing, to get our names cleared, we had them destroy the samples, and the records afterwards. Doctor Matthew was VERY gung-ho about the disposal, Preacher Man seemed happy about it too?
We’re clear though, we’ve got an reward coming, and tonight, I’ve got dinner with Bunny. I hope he’s not too upset, I was missing, presumed dead, for years.

and now we’re shipping colonists, at least they’re cleaner than those goat like things. They actually bought themselves into a colony.

Some 30 families all up, I’ll have to make sure the air/water recycling systems are up to scratch.

Some of the colonists knew Captain Maximillian of old, he probably wouldn’t appreciate any jokes about them buying the farm.

Jim Harding is dead, poor old guy, the situation is suspicious, he died of heart failure, with a look of terror on his face, and Doctor Matthew says that it looks like his blood flow was cut off somehow.

Jeff Oliver’s been killed, in the shower, with a towel.

This is too much like the old days, I might know how it was done.

The Captain knew Jane Smith, Jeff Oliver, and Will Rogers.

Jim was killed between 1am and 3am, and found between 7am and 8am.

Can someone fill me in on the details I missed, even the ones I didn’t know I missed.
Jeff Oliver was killed between 9am and 9:30, the shower was locked from the inside his brother Jed, was the previous user of the shower. His shower session was between 9:15, it was meant to be cleaned 9:15 – 9:30, Jayne was due to shower at 9:30, and started raising a ruckus then.

2 kids stole one of Jaynes guns between 7:30 and 9:30, Jayne kept checking on things every 2 hours over night.

Sam does know a way to satisy the majority of the clues, including the locked room, and the methods of the murders, except I’m not going to mention it yet, I don’t want to hinder any one elses thought processes, after all I could be wrong, and I can’t answer everything.

… and so the plan was set, the heroic, though outnumbered forces of the tramp freighter, arrayed against the over- whelming military might of the browncoats, spent, what might be their final hours in the ‘verse, wrapped in their own concerns.
Maybe Captain Maxwell wondered about the possibility of a life without anger. Maybe the Preacher regretted the lives lost in his minor crusades.
I’m sure Doctor Matthew wondered at the possibility of a peaceful solution. Maybe Lady Heliotrope was counting her latest ill-gotten gains.
I couldn’t help it though, I looked forward to the chance to use some of my old skills again, however distastefully they were acquired.
The battle was met, the enemy ship disabled, their forces routed, the noble hippie-kin saved, and the evil ranchers plan revealed for all to see. A reward was earned.
“I told you already Jayne, these are my bottles, go get your own.”

Wow, it seems our itinerant preacher actually has a friend, he doesn’t just collect enemies.
He heard from a Shepherd Brook, or was it Creek, maybe Stream. He ministers to people out at Four Winds, and seems to want some mercenaries.

Some of his flock have been victimised by raiders of some form, and he’s hoping for help, given the law isn’t very active around Four Winds.

These people are actually the nomadic descendants of hippies, believe it or not.
He isn’t able to offer much, so our best hope is to get to claim their ship. Let’s hope we get to keep it.

Our best bet seems to be an essentially stealth based mission. It’s just like the old days, almost enough to make one nostalgic
I wonder who hired these thugs? Whoever hired them can pay reparations to the hippy-kin.

OK, we got control of the bandit complex, Heliotrope is going stay and help with the door to the Comm Room, while the others go back up and search the complex, see if we missed anything that matters, and have a chat to the surviving bacndits.
Doors open, I can strip down the comm jammer, and after that Captain Maxwell wants the security system they had up.
Oh Darn it. It seems the bandit boss is a Major Anderson, the description fits, and the little troop figurines, and the copy of ‘The Art of War’, pretty much prove it. They’re led by the former Captain Anderson. They find an encrypted journal written by Anderson.
(Cue wavey image, spooky music, and sepia tone footage, as flashback starts)
Anderson was in the Alliance Engineering Corp I was undercover in during the War. He took me to the hospital during my R&R when I had a mysterious case of Amnesia. Doctor Martin met him too.
I was sent in to get close to him to investigate suspicions of his disloyalty to the cause. I would have cleared him, except for the fact that I disappeared when the Corp was wiped out by shelling. He was actually fanatically loyal, and liked quoting the ‘Art of War’, even in quiet intimate moments. I thought he was dead. There’s no way he wouldn’t recognise me if he saw me up close.
(End flashback)
I hope we don’t run into him.
Martin and Jayne head into town and deliver the medicine, the nuns, and the news about the bandits. We all head off.
My decryption skills are rougher than I thought, it takes a few days to figure out his code, it seems that they’ve been running a kidnapping ring here.

I took the shuttle, the Doctor, the Nuns, and the medicine down to the surface, some distance from town, just to be paranoid regarding the disease. Doc takes the Mule.

I wait at the Shuttle. Bored now.

5 minutes later, Matthew gets on the walky talky, squaks for help, then the signal gets cut off by powerful jamming equipment. I haven’t seen it that thick since the War.
Lord I hope he’s OK, I knew I should have gone with them.

Nip the shuttle along the road they were taking, I see the mule, but no-one else, there’s no where to land, and I can’t get in touch with the Ship, I take her back into orbit. The jamming continues till I’m 60 klicks out.

When we all get back down, it’s an hours walk to the Mule. Jayne lets loose some wild shots, we all had to duck for cover.

We follow tracks into the Bush. I hate the Bush. Too much nature. Towns are so much nicer.
Hours later, I’m so tired and dirty it’s not funny, night falls as we reach their camp, there’s a decent electronic security system in place. Good news for us. E-Sec is easier to circumvent than trained guards. We sneak in, the Holy Roller goes into a lower tunnel when we’re not looking. We go high.

We find a bunch of guards, sneak past their room, then I think the preacher triggers an alarm, they start coming out. Mad Max goes after them with a grenade, they don’t do too well. They should have left us alone.

Cool, back in the lower tunnel, we find there power supplu, they’re actualy using a Ship Power plant, thats a lot of Juice. We then find an ambush point, Cap goes through get ambushed, and we immediately counter-ambush them. The Nuns and the Doc are locked up back here.

One was hiding in the loo.
We account for everyone in the base bar one, and find that 3 or 4 of them and their leader are away at the moment.

There is a good, one way, security door here, probably only meant to be able to be opened from the other side, good idea, 2-way doors are their own design flaw.
I know how to open it. We have to be quick, I think the com-system is in there with him, so the boss, apparantly ex- military, and some troops are going to be on their way back.
If he’s got a vehicle we could be in trouble, they’re certainly equipped well enough to have one. I hate the Bush.

We’ve moved on from Bendigo, which is probably a good thing. I think I need to open up to the others, I can’t expect them to trust me, until I’ve shown them some trust.

Well, that went better than I expected, I was most unsure how the Captain would take it all. At least I got to run my ‘coffee jacket’ trick past them. I’m not even sure they believed me.
It’ll be nice not to have to constantly watch everything I say or do.

There must be somewhere out here that would be a good place to eventually settle down, a whole moon/planet will be a mite expensive though, got to try and find some good ways to make some extra cash.